My grandfather and grandmother worked in manufacturing they lived a modest life. Not rich, but they always had what they needed. Both of my parents worked in manufacturing, they also lived a modest life. We were by no means rich while I was growing up, but we never had to worry about food. I, for a short time,(around 8 years) worked for manufacturing companys, which once again, although I was not rich, it helped me live.

I have only a couple of times in my life actually lashed out in anger. Keep pushing me you mother fuckers, keep pushing. I will rip your fucking throats out with my teeth.

Conservatives Wave "Bye" to Manufacturing Jobs
Fox News Channel has a message for all you blue collar workers out there worried about losing your jobs to overseas competition: Tough luck.

Neil Cavuto, on his "Cavuto on Business" show Saturday (November 12, 2005), interviewed John Stossel, the co-host of ABC-TV's "20/20" program and author of Give Me a Break, on the topic of manufacturing jobs going overseas.

Sending jobs overseas creates new jobs, Stossel said, because when a company saves money by exporting jobs, it has more money to do new things.

Cavuto asked Stossel, "People say manufacturing jobs are leaving. What do you say?"

"Bye!" said Stossel, waving at the camera. "There's nothing wonderful about manufacturing jobs. I think if you look at what we want for our kids, that should answer the question. We don't want them working in a factory where the work is underpaid, I mean, is very hard, it may be uncomfortable. ... We want them taking jobs as engineers, as biologists. We think the services jobs are good for our kids. I think it's great if people in other countries want to manufacture things and we can just import it and pay for it with our service jobs."

Stossel brushed aside Cavuto's question about whether countries that do not make things lose their dominance. "Where's the evidence. We can trade for the goods we need," he said. Stossel added that we need not worry about bad relations arising with the nations we import from because we can just switch to someone else.

Cavuto did a lackluster job of interviewing Stossel. He never pressed him on any point, such as whether running a negative trade balance as the U.S. does is good for the nation in the long run. Nor did he force Stossel to really deal with the issue of relations with trading partners on which we are dependent for manufactured goods. I think that's because Cavuto basically agreed with Stossel and knew that Fox News Channel's position is the same. Manufacturing workers usually are represented by unions. Get rid of the manufacturing jobs and you get rid of the unions and that will make business happy.

Later in the show, guest Jonathan Hoenig, capitalistpig.com, predicted that General Motors Corp. would "go belly-up by the spring of 2006." Cavuto asked him if that would bring a bailout of the kind that helped Chrysler remain in business for 20-some years before merging with Daimler.

"God, I hope not!" said Hoenig, living up to the name of his website.

Hoenig and Stossel showed their disdain for people who work with their hands. Stossel says we don't want our kids doing these jobs because they might be "uncomfortable." What about the people who are doing those jobs now? What about their hopes for their kids? A lot of factory workers are a little too old to retrain for those jobs as biologists. Engineering jobs? You can kiss those goodbye. The engineering jobs will go where the manufacturing is. If we're not making anything, we don't need many engineers. And if they can figure out how to manufacture things overseas, they'll eventually figure out they can do the engineering over there, too, with engineers that earn a lot less than ones in this country.

In World War II, Josef Stalin looked at the shiploads of tanks, trucks, jeeps, and other materiel that Michigan was sending to the U.S.S.R. and said, "Detroit is winning the war." Michigan was the world's Arsenal of Democracy then. When that manufacturing base is gone, we won't be able to get it back overnight. Tool and die making and all the other skills that support the auto industry are not learned overnight.

How will we support our military with only service jobs? Our soldiers don't need McDonald's hamburgers overseas. They need tanks, planes, ships, helicopters, and guns. Will we let the Chinese make those for us once our manufacturing capacity is lost?

The French already have won the contract to build the next presidential helicopter. Yeah, Cavuto, the French!
The most powerful country in the world cannot even make a helicopter to take its leader to Camp David for the weekend.

If GM goes bankrupt, many other large companies will follow. They will figure out that if they go bankrupt, they can get out of union contracts, payments to their pension plans, and obligations to existing retirees. A lot of people are going to suffer. And people like Hoenig and Stossel don't give a damn.

Most Americans over 40 witnessed the dumbing down of our schools in the 70s 80s, 90s and into this century. As a teacher, I was 'encouraged' to pass minority students who did not work for excellence nor did they study toward academic success. Students quickly learned they didn't have to study for learning or passing grades. Thus, they coasted from grade school without effort and finished high school with spurious diplomas. Recently, Lou Dobbs of CNN, presented Americans with some disturbing facts on our schools.

What erodes America's foundation?

Fifty percent of black and Hispanic teenagers do not graduate from high school. The United States does not stand in the top ten industrialized nations of high school graduation rates. Robert Reich, former labor secretary, said, "Our children are not going to do as well as we are doing because they won't be able to command decent paying jobs. And that's the first time in many years since the Depression."

The facts show American students rank 28th in math while trailing China, Finland and Korea. America is no longer the most college educated nation in the world. Eric Hanushek, Hoover Institution, Stanford said, "I think it tells us something about the long-run prospects if we don't in fact take a new tact and improve our schools. Other countries are pushing very hard at developing their human resources and skills of their populations."

According to the Dobbs' report, 37 million people live in poverty. Functional illiteracy affects over 35 million Americans. One in five American children lives below the poverty level. Each year, 1.5 million unwed women give birth.

What are the inevitable results? The American Dream degrades to lower and lower expectations. Wages stagnant, mortgage defaults rise, 47 million Americans lack health insurance. Frustration and crime accelerate.

What's causing the demise of our educational systems? Four aspects of our Constitution erode every single day of the year because of massive, unrelenting legal and illegal immigration. What does it take to run a successful American society? First, it takes a highly educated populace. Two, everyone must buy into and adhere to a similar moral code. Third, each citizen must appreciate and abide by the same ethical system and finally, a single language is imperative to discuss, debate and evolve solutions for the common good. We continue losing all aspects with massive immigration from Third World countries.

America is a constitutional republic invented by very intelligent men such as Hamilton, Madison, Adams and Jefferson! However, it takes a highly educated public to advance that brilliant piece of governance. We're losing that ability on all fronts.

A prime example stems from a report by the Rocky Mountain News, May 16, 2005, 'What Happened?' www.rockymountainnews.com ; In 1999, 5,663 students enrolled in Denver Public Schools. In 2005, only 1,884 graduated from high school. That studied showed more than 65 percent flunked out or dropped out. What caused such a massive failure rate? The report showed that 30,000 illegal alien kids attended school with little to no ability to speak English. Their parents suffered functional illiteracy in English and Spanish. Additionally, the classroom experience suffered such degradation that one in five teachers quit or transferred out of DPS system every nine month cycle.

With 1.3 million illegal alien children in schools across America and hundreds of thousands of 'anchor babies' born to illegal mothers who cannot and do not speak English, it's little wonder America classrooms suffer similar problems across the country.

Writer Vicky Davis brings this national educational and job nightmare to a burning focal point when she said, "Assume the following are true: America has a population of about 300 million people. Minimum wage is between $5.00 and $7.00 per hour. A computer programmer makes an average salary of about $60,000 per year.

Davis declares facts about overpopulated countries like India and China. She knocks you upside the head with the following realities facing American workers:

"China has about 1.3 billion people," she said. "A common wage for a manufacturing job is about 50 cents per hour. India has over 1.1 billion people. A computer programmer makes between $7,000 and $10,000 per year."

Question 1: If you were a corporation, where would you locate to ensure the highest profits assuming that there are no barriers to re-importation of your products and services back into the U.S.? Answer: China or India.

Question 2: Will more education for America's children solve the problem of the wage differential between China, India and the United States? If so, explain how. Answer: Frightening!

Question 3: Consider the following as one option for solving the problem of the wage differential: Encourage massive immigration of foreign workers - labor and professional into America so that the cost of labor decreases by simple supply and demand rules. How many people would the United States have to import to equalize wages between China, India and the United States? Answer: You don't want to know because you'll get sick to your stomach.

Bonus A How many new people would need to be added to the U.S. population to equalize wages between China, India and the United States?

Bonus B What would that do to the standard of living in the United States?

Bonus C What would be the impact on American Workers?

Bonus D What would happen to American culture and values?

Question 4: Assuming that more education won't solve the problem and the selected remedy is to lower wages in the United States to match those of India and China, consider the following and answer the questions:

a. Explain the impact of the increased population on our natural resources.

b. Explain the impact of the increased population on our infrastructure.

Question 5: One argument used to justify free trade with China is that American consumers reap the benefits of being able to buy cheaper products produced by the Chinese. Considering that American workers are also American consumers, explain how cheaper products are a benefit to the consumer if the consumer must work for wages that are competitive with the Chinese and Indians and they must pay for the increased infrastructure costs and loss of natural resources to accommodate the increased population.

Question 6: Who benefits most from 'Free Trade' and the global economy?

Question 7: Define the vision you have for the future of America and for America's children. Is this vision possible if the U.S. policy is 'Free Trade' and competition in the global economy?"

With Davis' sobering pop quiz, how do you think America's Middle Class will survive the free trade onslaught with the continuing development of a highly uneducated population?

Short answer: It won't. It will no longer remain the Middle Class. It will become the lower class.

Why? We don't have enough educated people willing to take action to stop insourcing, offshoring, outsourcing and downgrading of American jobs.

Who did this? Look to the president of the United States and Congress.

Last week, senators Teddy Kennedy and Specter promoted Senate Bill 1932 bringing another 350,000 H-1B visas foreign workers into the USA with green cards to work American jobs. That's on top of the already 1.1 million legal immigrants they approve annually. And, that's on top of the 1.0 million H-1B, H-2B and L-1 visas ALREADY HERE! Bush did not raise a finger to stop last week's addition of another 350,000 that insanity. He must get a kick out of seeing Americans lose their jobs to foreigners!

In the meantime, even Democratic Senator Byrd of West Virginia got so sick of the 350,000 H-1B visas that he offered an amendment to strip the bill of the visas. Your Senate voted to delete Byrd's amendment and passed the 350,000 H-1B visas by 84 to 14 votes. Your own senators voted to screw 350,000 American workers out of a job.

It leads me to the following quote by Mark Twain, ""Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it."

Every week seems to bring a new story of an American icon moving overseas. This week, Levi's made its last pair of jeans in the United States.

The loss of manufacturing jobs is expected to be a huge issue in 2004. And union jobs with their $20-an-hour wages and good benefits are particularly at risk. Democrats and trade unionists will admit in private that those jobs will likely dwindle no matter what government does. However, government policy can affect the rate at which traditional manufacturing jobs disappear, what happens to the workers, and whether new jobs pay a living wage.

Several factors influence the loss of manufacturing jobs -- trade, productivity, the attitude of corporate executives and the overall health of the economy. If the United States is more open than its trading partners, jobs flow out faster. China, for instance, benefits immensely from the trading system but flouts the rules.

China calls itself socialist, but increasingly practices state capitalism. It flagrantly violates the "transparency" and equal access that Washington preaches to the world. China's currency is artificially depressed. So are its wages. Foreign money comes into China only on terms dictated by the Chinese government. The state allocates most of China's investment capital and retains a controlling interest in most large enterprises. All of this ignores world trade rules.

Not surprisingly, China's huge trade surplus drains American jobs. Without being demagogues, the Democrats can fairly fault Bush for allowing Beijing a double standard on trade.

However, trade is only part of the story. Another big part is productivity. Jobs in, say, steel and autos are dwindling because workers and machines are getting ever more productive. Whether the cars are made in the United States, Mexico, or Japan, it takes ever fewer workers to produce a car. These industries will never have the work forces they once had.

So the real issues are whether we work to retain jobs that can be saved and what kinds of jobs replace the ones that go. There is no silver bullet, but government does have plenty of leverage, as two recent studies by the Russell Sage Foundation make clear.

The first, titled Low-Wage America, exhaustively surveyed manufacturing and service industries across America. It found that employers have a lot of latitude in how they structure jobs and career opportunities. In the same industries, some companies chose a low road of high-turnover, low-skill, low-pay jobs as well as outsourcing and moving work overseas. Others made heroic efforts to upgrade worker skills and keep good jobs at home. Some manufacturing jobs simply can't compete with low-wage overseas labor, but others definitely can through better technology and skilled workers.

Government can help or hinder this process through its training and career-ladder programs (or their absence). It can use tax policies to make it easier for companies to move offshore -- as the Bush administration has done -- or harder. Unions can promote decent and competitive jobs, and government policy can be friendly to union-management partnerships or hostile.

A second forthcoming Sage book, titled Downsizing in America, finds that a lot of job shedding is indeed occurring, especially in manufacturing. But over time this process is largely offset by the generation of new jobs. Most laid-off manufacturing workers, however, don't want to work at Wal-Mart. Again, the real question is how we ensure a plentiful supply of good jobs as technology keeps evolving.

This is not the stuff of barn-burner speeches or bumper stickers. It's small comfort to auto, steel and textile workers who risk losing their jobs this year, not in some hypothetical policy future.

Yet there is a real difference between the two parties, and President Bush ought to be vulnerable on the issue. His party would let companies have their way with workers and would do little to ease painful transitions. The opposition party would devise policies to influence the quality of the new jobs, invest more in training and insist that trade is a two-way street.

If this is a little complicated, well, reality is complicated. The task of political leaders is not just easy sloganeering. It's to explain and educate -- and lead.

Typical of bucky to side with the bushies... birds of a feather you know... bucky loves liars, especially those who betray our country.... how many died when Clinton lied, bucky? How many died when Libby lied? How many died when Bush lied?

Crimson Eagle? I don't know what to tell you bro... It iS rather freightening what is happening to our country especially with the braindead republicans in charge... and their followers are just as bad...

Actually, the post that buckshot wrote is not siding with Bush. I've read it over a couple of times, and it does bring up some good points. And I am 100% union man, so don't think that I bring this up lightly. We in the trades right now are going through our own battles at this time. Our Union President of the IBEW and our leaders along with NECA are taking aggressive actions. I have read over carefully what they propose, and if everyone does what they say, I think we will once again strengthen. The biggest problems for us will be all of this outsourcing of jobs. As more jobs leave, there is less work for us. As stated in buckshots article,

Quote:

Not surprisingly, China's huge trade surplus drains American jobs. Without being demagogues, the Democrats can fairly fault Bush for allowing Beijing a double standard on trade.

and

Quote:

Government can help or hinder this process through its training and career-ladder programs (or their absence). It can use tax policies to make it easier for companies to move offshore -- as the Bush administration has done -- or harder. Unions can promote decent and competitive jobs, and government policy can be friendly to union-management partnerships or hostile. (as the Bush policies I might add. Crimson)

and also this

Quote:

Yet there is a real difference between the two parties, and President Bush ought to be vulnerable on the issue. His party would let companies have their way with workers and would do little to ease painful transitions. The opposition party would devise policies to influence the quality of the new jobs, invest more in training and insist that trade is a two-way street.

These quotes actually point out one of the points that the Democrats should be focusing on. This is something that they should be talking about loudly and clearly, yet we hear barely a peep. Of course, I could also argue that Bush has destroyed everything which he touched, that the democrats just don't know where to begin.

Listen, I know that a lot of you don't like Buckshot. Some of the things he has written have seemed callous in the way that he said them, but I believe they were not worded properly. Other things, I have disagreed with. Instead of slamming him though, why not (if you disagree) talk it over with him. Is this not what we are supposed to do? Educate each other? I think that part of the reason he puts so much up pointing to the negatives of the democrat's is because he sees so much negative from us about the republicans that it is his way of saying "Wait a minute, the Democrat's are crooked also, we should not forget that." I think that he is correct that we have got to look someplace else for the answers because both parties are corrupt. Right now I am having a conversation with him about the Libertarian party and why I disagree (vehemently) with this party also.

Remember, One cannot force another to change. Only the person can change themselves. Lead through example, and say things that force them to think for themselves, if we continue to badger and put down, it will only lead to resentment. (This go's for buckshot also) If we look down on a person because they do not see something that we seem to think is obvious, does this make us any better than the people who are now ruining our lives? Just something to think on.

I would also, while I am on this thread like to thank Dog.g for a suggested read. I think everyone should read it and try to understand it, its really quite wonderful.